1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to imaging systems, and more particularly, to visual image systems where a visible image bearing medium, such as a photographic print, also includes a machine encoded information record for electronically reproducing the visual image on another visual image bearing medium.
2. Description of Prior Art
In the production of photographic prints from negative or positive transparency originals, it is now conventional to automate the many parameters required to provide an aesthetically pleasing or enhanced print image by accounting for such variables in the original as image density, contrast, color balance, as well as the sensitivity of the photochemistry carried by the print substrate in the context of a response to variables in the original. The characteristics of the originals are measured, analyzed and the results then used by way of a computer to control complete processing of the ultimate print. More recently, electronic systems have been developed by which substantially the complete image presented on the original is stored electronically and the stored electronic information processed to provide needed or desired image enhancement to account for variables in the original. The enhanced image facsimile is then electronically represented to produce the final photographic print.
As a result of the state of the art currently available for the production of photographic prints, a wider range of variables in the negative or positive transparency image can be tolerated without compromise in the quality of the ultimate print. The print, however, represents a unique photograph in itself so that additional copies using the same original are likely to result only if produced as multiple copies simultaneously with the originals. In other words, a print which exists in an album together with the negative or original positive transparency becomes difficult to reproduce in kind because of the many enhancement factors originally introduced in the original processing of the print from the original negative or transparency. Additionally, an inherent characteristic of a photographic print, as distinguished from a positive transparency, is that the print can be viewed only in its original format. In other words, it cannot be presented as an enlarged projected image in which the enhanced qualities are preserved. There is a need, therefore, for a method and/or system by which the aesthetic qualities of an enhanced photographic print may be faithfully reproduced either as a print copy or on an alternate image presenting medium.